


Save Me

by mmwhatchasayy



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Angst, I'm so sorry, M/M, Pain, Suicide Attempt, angsty, coliver - Freeform, depressed Connor, post-season 3, this hurt to write so have fun reading, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 14:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10698519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmwhatchasayy/pseuds/mmwhatchasayy
Summary: Ever since that awful night, the night Connor showed up to apartment 303 high out of his mind and stuck deep in a panic attack that would last for hours, he'd been different.





	Save Me

Oliver sits in the hard plastic chair of the hospital waiting room, his knee bouncing anxiously. 

He isn't alone, though he might as well be. Across the fluorescent-lit room, an old man sits quietly, fiddling with his glasses. Two seats down from him, a middle-aged woman stares sightlessly at the pages of a magazine, distracted.

The man was there before Oliver had arrived however long ago, sitting and fiddling and worrying in that same chair, but the woman had hurried in with her husband fairly recently. 

He didn't have time to see what was wrong with the man before he was swept away to be examined - not that he cared. 

He only cared about one thing right now, and it certainly wasn't the medical issues of a stranger.

Oliver took another sip of the cheap, horrible coffee he'd bought earlier, and winced when it was much colder than he remembered it being. 

How long had he been sitting there? He glanced down at his watch.

 _2:13am_.

It had been hours, then. Hours of pacing and worrying and bouncing and trying to erase that horrible image from his mind.

The unforgettable, blood-soaked image.

Oliver squeezed his eyes closed, doing his best to push it to the back of his mind.

They snapped right back open, though, when a woman clad in bright pink scrubs pushed through the door to the ICU moments later, clipboard in hand.

"Is there anyone here for a . . . " she paused, glancing down at her sheet. "Connor Walsh?"

Oliver practically leapt out of his seat, cold coffee flying out of its styrofoam cup and onto his already bloodstained jeans. He didn't even bother to glance down at the ruined pants, instead rushing over to meet the woman.

"Can I see him?"

 

*****

 

_Ever since that awful night, the night Connor showed up to apartment 303 high out of his mind and stuck deep in a panic attack that would last for hours, he'd been different._

_Quieter, more withdrawn._

_He stayed at the office every night until dark, and barely slept at night. Instead, he sat hunched over a computer or a book for hours, eating only what Oliver put in front of him. He only went to bed when Oliver pulled him into their room, begging him to at least try to sleep._

_He would toss and turn all night, waking with a shout dying on his lips, trembling and scared - if he got to sleep at all. Most nights, he didn't._

_Oliver knew something was horribly wrong, of course, but he had no idea how to help. Connor simply wouldn't talk to him._

_Some days it seemed like he was okay. Like everything would be fine, just as it used to be._

_But other days?_

_Well, that was a whole other story._

_Sometimes it seemed like Connor couldn't drag himself from bed, like he didn't have the energy to stand, much less head into court for the day._

_But he always did, mumbling something to himself about how he couldn't miss a day, he had to keep Oliver safe and do what he was told. But despite Oliver's pleas, his increasing anxiety, and his withering health, he kept at it._

_He didn't miss a single day, he didn't go in late, he never came home early._

_To his friends, everything seemed fine - the deep bags under his glazed eyes seemed to give nothing away._

_It hadn't always been like that, of course. They'd been together again for maybe a month or two when things started in their downward spiral, when Connor seemed to fall down the rabbit hole. Each day seemed harder for him to face, each minor obstacle a looming wall, impossible for him to climb._

_Connor looked at life as if it were hopeless._

_And Oliver didn't know what to do. What_ could _he do?_

_He did his best to take care of Connor. He reminded him just how much he loved him every day, he gave him food, he pulled him to bed at an almost acceptable time. He helped him through panic attacks, even tried to get him to see a doctor about the increasing anxiety - but nothing seemed to help._

_Until, one day, things changed._

_Connor kissed Oliver good morning, he helped with breakfast, he came home before the sun set that evening. That night, they smiled and joked with each other over a shared plate of fried rice and went to bed happy._

_And things started to look up. It seemed like everything was going to be okay._

_And it was, for a while._

 

*****

 

Oliver was exhausted. 

He didn't sleep a wink, didn't bother to try. How could he, when Connor was laid out in front of him, unconscious and pale and hooked up to too many machines to count?

Instead of closing his eyes, Oliver dragged his chair close to his boyfriend's bedside, ever so gently laced their fingers together, and drunk in the sight of him. 

He could've lost Connor tonight, could've lost his entire world, his sun and his stars. If he hadn't found the man when he did . . . 

He shuddered, shaking his head, trying to clear the picture, bright and slippery with blood, from his head like it was an Etch-a-Sketch.

But they still weren't in the clear, he reminded himself miserably. 

 _He's stable for now_ , the woman dressed head to toe in blinding pink had told him. _But it's still all a bit touch-and-go. He lost a lot of blood, and we only have so much O-Negative to give. For now, we've got him hooked up to some fluids to make sure he's comfortable. It's the best we can do until we get more blood._

Oliver would give all the blood he had to the sickly-looking man in front of him, if he could.

If he weren't sick, that is.

God, he'd never wished so hard that he had never been diagnosed. It had never mattered more.

The familiar ring of Connor's cell phone pulled Oliver out of his wallowing self-hatred, and he tore his eyes from his sleeping form to glance at the brightly lit screen someone had set on the table beside the bed.

By the time Oliver realized he should probably pick it up, the phone had stopped ringing. 

For a long moment, there was no sound but the steady beeping of the machines monitoring Connor's heart rate, his oxygen, his blood flow. 

His life.

Oliver was just beginning to wonder if he should pick up the phone and call the person back - or someone else, Connor's family or his friends, maybe - when he was saved by that same ringtone.

This time, he reached over slowly to lift up the phone and put it to his ear, hitting the green button that silenced the too-loud ringing. 

"Connor!" Scolded the familiar voice of none other than Michaela Pratt, law student extraordinaire. "Where are you? We were supposed to meet Annalise half an hour ago!"

There was a long stretch of silence before he answered. He didn't know what to say.

"It's Oliver," he finally told her shortly, his voice weak and shaky.

"Oh, hey," she said after a pause, sounding a little surprised, though he could hear the smile in her voice. "How are you?"

"I, uh - I've been better." He didn't realize he was crying until a tear dropped off his chin and onto his jeans stained with varying shades of red and brown. 

How long had he been crying?

"Is everything alright?" She asked, worried. "Where's Connor?"

He took a long pause. He couldn't say it. If he said it, it would be true. It would make all this so much more real. And he couldn't deal with that, not yet.

"Oliver?" She prompted.

"You should probably get down to the hospital," he finally whispered.

"Wait, what? What happened?"

"Just get here, Michaela," he pleaded, his voice breaking. "Please get here."

 

*****

 

_"Hey, Ollie?"_

_Oliver looked up from his laptop to see Connor, wearing nothing but his briefs and a black tank top, leaning against the kitchen counter._

_"Yeah?" He sighed, scanning him with tired eyes, unable to help the small smile that passed his lips at the sight._

_"I just - you know I love you, right?"_

_Today was another good day - maybe not as good as the one before, but still better than a week ago, a month ago. Things weren't perfect, but they were getting there._

_"Of course I do," he said, frowning slightly. "And I love you."_

_"More than anything, though," he clarified, stepping closer. "You're everything to me."_

_He took a seat next to Oliver on the couch, pulling a leg underneath himself as he faced his boyfriend. "You're everything," he insisted, a hint of desperation in his eyes. "I need you to understand that. Please, just - understand."_

_"I do," Oliver reassured him, reaching over to lace their fingers tightly together. "I know, Con. You're everything to me, too."_

_He nodded, taking a deep breath. "Okay," he sighed quietly. "Okay, good."_

_"Is everything alright?" Oliver asked after a beat, and he nodded again, squeezing the other man's hand before standing._

_"Everything's great. I'm gonna go take a shower." He leaned down, gently knotting a hand in Oliver's hair before pulling him close and pressing a kiss against his forehead._

_Oliver smiled up at him. "You want me to join?" He suggested, grin turning mischievous._

_Something crossed Connor's eyes, something dark and haunting. He looked almost . . . scared. Sorry._

_"No, that's alright," he said, smiling back. It seemed much faker than it had before._

_Maybe Oliver was imagining it._

_"I'll order a pizza, then?" He suggested. "Should be here by the time you get out."_

_Connor nodded. "That sounds great, Ollie." A moment passed, and Oliver turned back to his laptop, small smile still on his face. "I love you," Connor burst out again, backing up toward the bedroom._

_Oliver chuckled, shooing him away without glancing up from the screen. "Go take a shower, you big sap. You're starting to smell," he teased._

_He didn't see the heartbroken look that passed across Connor's eyes as he didn't say it back, just heard the quiet steps toward the bathroom and the click of a lock._

_Maybe if he'd seen it, he would've known._

 

*****

 

A sharp gasp from the doorway pulls Oliver from his distracted reverie.

He turns to see Michaela, her hand over her mouth and her eyes wide with shock. Behind her stands an equally surprised-looking Asher, and, not far behind, a terrified Laurel.

"Hey, guys," he whispers, his voice a croak.

There's a pause before Michaela springs into action. "Oh, Ollie!" She cried, her eyes filling with tears. She hurried forward to wrap her arms around him, and he tucks his face into her shoulder, holding her tightly to him. 

She pulled back a moment later, gripping his shoulders so she can get a good look at him. "What happened? Are you alright? Did someone do this to him, or was there an accident?"

He wiped at his eyes shakily, gesturing for her to sit down first.

She perched on the armrest of the chair Asher occupied, and he roped an arm around her waist, seeming not to think twice of it. 

"Oliver?" Laurel prodded gently, when he said nothing. "What happened? You can tell us."

His voice was quiet as he reached over to take Connor's hand again, and he stared down at the fingers entwined with his own, much too cold and much too pale. 

"Last night, Connor tried to - " He broke off into a sob.

He couldn't say it. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't.

Michaela's warm hand rested gently on his shoulder. 

 _It's okay,_ the gesture said.

But it wasn't okay. It wasn't, and it never would be again, if Connor didn't pull through.

"He tried to kill himself."

 

*****

 

_Oliver was a little confused when he heard Connor begin to fill the bath in the other room, instead of turning on the showerhead._

_Connor never took baths, had once explained to Oliver how disgusting he thought they were, before everything had gone so horribly wrong._

_"You're just sitting there in your own filth!" He'd exclaimed drunkenly, and a chuckling Oliver had tugged the beer bottle from his hand. "I don't get how people can enjoy that!"_

_But he didn't think much of it until after the pizza arrived._

_"Connor!" He'd called. "Food's here!"_

_He was met with silence. Not even an "Okay!" or a "Just a minute!"._

_Just . . . silence._

_Oliver put the box on the counter, took a few steps toward the bedroom. "Con? Everything okay in there?"_

_That's when he saw the note._

_A crisp white envelope, his name scrawled neatly across it in black ink, set neatly on the bed._

_He didn't have to open it to know what it was._

_Pure terror gripped him like a cold fist around his heart._

_"Connor!" He shouted desperately, rushing to the bathroom door, scrambling to get it open._

_Locked._

_"Connor, please!" He screamed, eyes blurring with unshed tears. He pounded on the door._

_There was no key, there never had been._

_Why should there be?_

_Oliver kicked at the thick wooden door desperately, hoping and praying that he was wrong. That Connor was okay, that this was just some cruel joke._

_Finally, finally, finally, the door slammed open, crashing against the wall behind it._

_Later, sitting for hours on end in a dreary waiting room, Oliver would think of stories of adrenaline rushes, of lifted cars and saved lives and kicked-down doors. But now, all he could see was Connor._

_Connor, sitting bloody in their shared bathtub, water turned pink spilling over the sides and onto the floor. Connor, with angry red slashes across his wrists and a blade held in limp fingers._

_Connor, barely conscious, sitting in his underwear and soaked in his own blood._

 

*****

 

In the hour since Oliver had admitted what happened, Laurel hadn't said a word.

She'd retreated into herself, staring with glazed eyes at the still form in front of her. It was only after Michaela and Asher retreated with the promises of coffee that she finally looked up the Oliver. 

He wasn't looking at her, of course. He was gently brushing dark hair away from Connor's pale face with his free hand, the other still clutching at Connor's, careful to avoid the heavy bandaging on his wrists.

"This is my fault," she admitted softly. If it hadn't been so horribly quiet in the room, so lacking of Connor's mindless chatter and loud laugh that could light up a room, Oliver wouldn't have heard her at all. Her voice was quiet, but her tone was dull.

He looked up at her slowly. "Laurel, this isn't - "

"Of course it's my fault," she insisted numbly. "You were there. You heard me tell him to - to do this." Her voice wavered only slightly.

"You didn't mean it. He knows that. He knows you love him, you all do."

She broke away from his gaze to look down at her hands. "How can you be sure?"

He said nothing for a long time. Finally, he whispered simply, "I think he was planning this long before you told him he should."

She nodded, and a tear slipped down her cheek. "I'm so sorry, Oliver."

"Tell him that when he wakes up."

 _When_. 

They both knew there was no when, an if at best.

"How can I help?"

Again, a long stretch of silence overtook the room. When he finally spoke, though, neither one could help the tiny smile that grew. Because it was the best way she could help, the best way anyone could. 

Things had turned just a little bit less hopeless with her tiny nod that came after his question.

"Do you happen to know your blood type?"

 

*****

 

_White towels wrapped tightly around Connor's wrists were rapidly turning red, and Oliver couldn't think what else to do._

_He was pressing hard on the wounds, applying all the pressure that he could, just as the woman on the phone had instructed. The bloody wrists had been pulled into his lap, coloring his jeans with a bright, slippery red._

_"It's okay, Connor," Oliver was rambling to the man in front of him. "It'll be okay. Everything's gonna be just fine," he promised._

_Connor's head lolled to the side, lazy eyes trying hard to focus. "Ollie?" He slurred._

_"It's me, Con," Oliver reassured him hysterically, terrified eyes meeting unfocused and confused ones. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. We're gonna fix you up and then we're gonna have that pizza, how does that sound?" He was crying, now, tears making salty tracks down his cheeks and dropping into the pink water below. "You just need to hang on for me. Do you think you can do that?"_

_"Hurts," he moaned in response, his eyes fluttering shut. "Hurts, Ollie."_

_"I know, I know," he cried, squeezing his wrists harder than was probably necessary. "I just need you to hold on for another few minutes, alright? The ambulance is on its way. Then we're gonna fix you right up."_

_"'M sorry," Connor mumbled, the words so slurred and pained they were barely discernible, before slipping into unconsciousness._

 

*****

 

It was a full 27 hours (plus an emergency surgery and two blood transfusions) after Connor's ambulance pulled into the emergency room that he finally awoke.

It was a slow process, just like always. 

Cool fingers twitched in Oliver's, pulling a small, surprised gasp from his lips. Next, his eyelids fluttered, and Michaela stood up quickly. 

"We'll give you two some alone time," she told Oliver, practically dragging a quietly protesting Asher from the room, Laurel close on their heels.

Before his eyes could open all the way, though, Connor screwed them shut, his face tight with pain. He moaned quietly, the sound low and tortured. 

"It's okay, Con," Oliver whispered, leaning forward to brush the hair out of Connor's eyes with the hand not gripping the other man's. "You can open your eyes, it's just me. You're okay."

Slowly, slowly, slowly, Connor finally cracked his eyes open to stare at Oliver. The familiar amber was watery and unfocused, and he looked almost scared.

Neither one said anything for a long time. 

Seconds, minutes, maybe even hours passed. Oliver couldn't be sure. 

He just held Connor's gaze and he held Connor's hand and he sat there, drinking in the sight of the finally conscious man before him.

Eventually, the silence between them was shattered. 

"I'm sorry, Ollie," Connor breathed, his words scared and small. "Please don't be angry with me."

And for some reason, that simply set Oliver off.

"Don't be angry with you?" He hissed after a shocked beat, eyes narrowing. "Are you kidding?"

Connor shrank back. Of all things, he certainly hadn't been expecting that. "I - "

"You tried to kill yourself, Connor!" Oliver reminded him in a furious whisper, cutting off his desperate attempt at an apology. "You tried to - to leave me here, and you don't want me to be _angry_ with you? Of course I'm angry! I don't understand how you could do this!" He cried desperately. "I thought you knew how loved you are!"

"W-What?" He stammered, looking more than a little lost.

"You're my family, Connor! And the people waiting right outside this room, probably listening in right now - they're your family, too."

Connor's eyes were growing wet, right alongside Oliver's. "I'm so sorry, Ollie," he whispered. It seemed there was nothing else he could say.

"You'd better be," he grumbled, his anger quickly receding into something else entirely.

Relief.

Oliver moved to perch on the edge of the hospital bed, letting Connor's hand go for a moment to lean forward and gently wrap secure arms around his much-too-skinny body.

"I am," he promised, his voice muffled against the fabric of the other man's shirt. "I love you, Ollie."

"I know," he sighed, leaning back to get a good look at Connor. He seemed unable to help himself from once again brushing his too-long hair back and pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I love you, too. I love you so much so that if you do this to me again, I'll have to kill you myself," he attempted to tease, though it hung awkwardly in the air.

Still, Connor quirked his lips into the lopsided smile Oliver had feared he'd never see again. "I don't think whoever did these stitches would appreciate that," he warned, his voice teasing and light.

And despite it all - the fear and the anger and the seriousness of this whole situation - despite it all, Oliver laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first published work so pleasepleaseplease let me know if you liked it (or if you didn't)! If you see any mistakes, please point them out and I'll be sure to fix them. 
> 
> I'm not sure if I love the title, so let me know if you have a better idea!
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!


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